


I Am Iron Dad

by cpt_winniethepooh



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Crack, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Humor, Iron Dad, M/M, Meta, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 08:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18869656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Let's put all the canon nonsense aside and imagine Tony going back to 2008 and having to do the "I am Iron Man" speech... but because he basically became the (un)official Dad(TM) in the MCU, he accidentally reveals more than he had planned.VAGUELY ENDGAME-COMPLIANT BUT NOTHING HURTS





	I Am Iron Dad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Menatiera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/gifts).



> Yes hello my name is Winnie and I have a PHD and about nineteen years of experience in ignoring the canon and making up my own versions. 
> 
> This is a quick crack/fix-it based on what me and [Menatiera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera) have been joking about, which is that Tony became the ultimate Dad(TM) of the MCU - which is about the only thing I didn't see coming in 2012 when I jumped onto this bandwagon, but man, I'm glad they went there. So credits to Mena for the brainstorming! <3 
> 
>  
> 
> The only thing I'm using from Endgame is the element of time travel and Morgan so. Have fun!

It was, _supposedly_ , an easy mission. Simple. Straightforward.

Go back to 2008, move just _one_ object out of reach for a future – present – _whatever_ baddie, then get back to their original timeline.

Tony should've known that nothing would ever be that simple when Captain Sassypants was involved.

 

It was just the two of them this time: Tony to operate the machine, and Steve because there was no chance of him running into himself, unlike the rest of the Avengers. He even wore jeans and a normal sized hoodie, thanks to the Winter Menace who had a firm grasp of blending in with a crowd, unlike _other_ ancient supersoldiers, so they were all prepared.

They arrived without a hitch. That was the only part of the plan that actually went according to the, well, _plan_ , because then they stepped out from the cleaning cabinet onto the corridor, which was full of reporters.

Steve froze like a deer in headlights. Tony span on his heels to face away from then and then nudged Steve to put his gigantic arms around Tony's shoulders.

"Pretend we're dating!" he hissed. "I can't be seen!"

Steve immediately did as asked, for once in his life, though he muttered under his breath. "I'm not kissing you!"

"I wasn't asking you to!" Tony fired back, still in a low voice. "That'd just make things worse anyway... keep walking."

They slunk off to the bathroom, and Steve's panicked eyes mirrored his own as they faced each other.

"You said nobody would be here!"

"Nobody was supposed to!" Tony said, then began fiddling with the machine. "I swear, I had Pepper check the records and she's never wrong– oh, fuck."

"What?"

"We recalibrated it three days ago," Tony said. "And it switched to daylight saving time."

"So?"

Tony wanted to repeatedly bang his head on the wall. "So, based on the equations about the relative time-conversion methods we used–"

"Tony, small words," Steve warned.

"–we're about a week later than what we were supposed to be. Where. When. _Whatever_."

He bit back a groan. Such a lousy mistake–

"Can we still do the switch?" Steve asked.

"Yeah. The day we selected was just because nobody would've been in our way."

"Okay. Then I do the switch, you stay here and don't draw attention."

He sounded so sure. Even without the uniform, it was the Captain speaking – and yet now Tony saw through the cracks. Steve was determined, yes, but that would only get you so far.

"You can't blend in with a bunch of reporters, Steve." He couldn't blend in with anyone except retirees, but that was beside the point.

"Yes I can– why are they here, anyway?"

Tony took a deep breath. "If I remember correctly, this is the day I reveal my secret identity as a superhero."

Steve blinked at him, then blinked again. "You mean when you announce you are Iron Man?"

"What other secret ID would I have?" Tony rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course that's what I mean."

"Well, then, that's easy. I'll just wait until every reporter is in the press room and then sneak out in the back and..."

"You can't; security's too high after my abduction," Tony sighed again. "We should just go back to the present, recalibrate _again_ , and then come back, and..."

"That's a waste of time if I can just do it now," Steve argued.

"If there's one thing we have, it's _time_ ," Tony pointed out.

"No, let's just do it now. I've learned from the best spies in the world, and JARVIS isn't even active here now. I can do it."

Tony's heart skipped a beat at the mention of JARVIS – God, everything was so different now.

Back now.

Fuck, time travel made his head hurt.

But Steve used the millisecond of Tony's pause and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I've done riskier things in the past – and future, too. I'll be back soon." And with that, he was out the door before Tony could protest.

 

Tony hid in a stall and sat on the closed toilet lid.

He knew how clean the visitor bathrooms were kept, at least.

He also knew that Steve didn't mean to hurt Tony, but he still was very good at it. Barnes helped him realize that, of all people, that Captain High Horse was just remarkably good a putting his foot in his mouth.

And Tony couldn't even go after him, because he'd immediately be recognized and they'd be in even bigger trouble.

This night would change so many things. His life, Pepper's and Rhodey's lives, and (he wasn't saying this to be overdramatic) the world in general. Superheroes would become a _thing_ , and all because Christine Everhart baited him into... no. She didn't _bait_ him, but her comments did make him realize how much he wished to be known for something other than the Merchant of Death.

He remembered her smug, knowing smile, and how she was the only one who remained seated in the uproar.

Damn, but she was _good_.

 

He couldn't help but think about how different he had been. Not just the Iron Man thing, but his personality in general – how little he allowed himself to be honest, to be real with himself. And if he couldn’t be honest with himself, he could even less be so with Pepper – and yet she took care of him. From day one she had never let his shit pass, and that was why he loved her so much (or at least, one of the five or six hundred reasons), why she was the best.

Before that he would've been, and had, in fact, been, so afraid to become a father. To repeat his own father's mistakes... god, he had been so insecure. And at first the Avengers, mostly Romanoff and Rogers, brought the worst out of him, all his flaws and imperfections... then, somehow, that shifted. Sure, there were the bots to baby, and then Friday to help grow, and by then, the whole team had become _his_ , somehow. Romanoff came bitching about the difficulty of having blood in her shoes, and Tony may have spent hours designing her new gear, and she became Natasha, or just Nat, by the end. Peter, of course, was the cheekiest of the lot, even going as far as to saving his contact info as "Iron Dad", which then Clint spread onto the whole team. Even Wanda came down to the workshop a few nights to talk things through, though she was better with Steve – but they worked it out.

Tony was just as responsible for the death of her parents as Bucky was for Tony's parents', which, according to Steve, wasn't that much. And somehow they made it work.

And there was Morgan, of course. Morgan and Pepper, and Tony couldn't help but pity his old self from 2008: he didn't know what love was; the love of parents, friends, and _family_. He didn't know what it meant to have a team that relies on you and that you are responsible for; he didn't know what it meant to come home to the people that love you the most and that you love the most. He didn't know how much a kid telling you they loved you 3,000 meant.

He stared at the tiles on the floor, and openly wiped his eyes– his old self would have so much to work through. He had thought that Obie was the worst that could happen, the poor sod, and then failed to work through the trauma of that for a long time.

But his old self wasn't his responsibility. He was here to save the world, and then go back home, to his family, to his wife and his daughter.

To be honest, at least he had the right company for that. Steve got shit done, and even though Tony was not the best with patience, he did stay put, and waited for Steve's return. The less attention, the better, and Steve was definitely better at that than Tony.

 

Not a full minute after that thought had passed Tony's mind, the bathroom door burst open, making Tony jump.

"Tony!" Steve stage-whispered. "Tony?"

"I'm here," Tony grumbled and opened the stall door. "Just in time, I was wondering where–"

"Not now," Steve hushed him, and blood run cold in Tony's veins as he looked at Steve's white face. "Come on, you need to go out–"

"What? No! Steve, what?"

Steve put a pile of black fabric into his arms. "Dress up!"

"Tell me what the hell is going on," Tony ordered, arms full of what he assumed was a suit jacket.

"I..." Steve blushed slightly. "I may have punched you out."

Tony opened his mouth, said nothing, then closed it.

"I couldn’t do the switch because you were, um, always smarter than I– anyway, you found me and I didn't know what to do and I accidentally punched you out."

The gears clicked. "Past me, you mean. The me from this timeline. You punched my past self out."

"I didn't mean to!" Steve rushed to say. "But you were getting hyper, and loud, and then louder, and everything I said made it worse!"

Tony could imagine that all too well. A stranger that looked remarkably like dad's old photos of Cap, sneaking about in his place; not a good combination.

And yet.

"You punched me out!" he repeated. "Steve–"

"Pepper came looking for you and I hid you under a table, you will be fine, but you have a press conference–"

Tony groaned. "You said you could do this!" he hissed. "You said–"

"I was wrong!" Steve hissed back. "I panicked and didn't know what to do–"

"So now what, do I pretend to be past me and do the press conference?" Tony asked in disbelief. "Because that's such a horrible idea, it's so dangerous, do you have any idea–"

"Yes, but do you have a _better_ idea?" Steve asked. "Because I don't!"

Tony stared at him, at the perfectly beautiful face and the wide, anxious blue eyes.

How he had praised him as a kid, how he had thought that Cap was perfect.

Good times.

Tony hastily pulled his own jacket off and put the suit's jacket over his T-shirt. He had no tie, and only jeans, but hey– new era, new Tony Stark.

He looked nothing like his own self, but there was no helping that.

"Just so we're clear, this is me fixing what you messed up, _again_ ," Tony said.

"I know," Steve said in a devastated tone. He did look sheepish and sorry – then he smiled weakly. "But hey, that's what you do: you are Iron Dad. You fix things."

"Not like this," Tony rolled his eyes, but the truth was: yes, yes like this.

 

He avoided Pepper and Coulson, just stepped straight into the conference room, and Rhodey announced his arrival with a relieved smile.

He had no cards, and no joke to crack about that, but Christine still interrupted him as soon as he began to speak. He didn't even know what the original story was supposed to be, but it didn't matter anyway: as soon as he mentioned the word "superhero", Christine jumped on it.

He had to bite back a smile. She was great at what she did, she truly was. He even made a mental note to ask after her from Pepper, and maybe tell this story to Morgan: how a journalist basically played him well enough – him, an eccentric genius billionaire – to reveal his secret identity of a superhero.

And then came the moment of truth.

"The truth is... I am Iron Dad."

 

_ECCENTRIC BILLIONAIRE: confirmed daddy kink?_

_What did Tony Stark mean? – exclusive video analysis_

_Tony Stark: a questionable father figure?_

_Secretary mad at boss_ _: Pepper Potts filmed shouting at Tony Stark after announcement_

 

Tony groaned at put the frozen bag of peas back to his black eye, and Pepper squeezed his ankle in solidarity.

 _"I can do this, Tony,"_ Tony mimicked. _"I learned from the best spies, there is no way I can't not do this!"_

Steve swallowed sheepishly. "Sorry," he said, for maybe the fifth time that day.

"The most astonishing thing is that you believed him," Bucky said from the other end of the couch.

"Don't blame the victim," Tony fired back. "And I had a moment of weakness, okay, and it's not like I could've done the switch myself."

Nat snorted. "It's okay, you'll get better at recognizing when Steve is over his head."

"Which is just most of the time, really," Bucky said, but smiled at Steve nonetheless. Besotted idiots, Tony thought.

"The machine's almost finished recalibrating, and this time there should be no issues," Bruce said, tapping away on his tablet.

"So we can do this again, _hurray_ ," Tony murmured.

The worst was Pepper arguing with him – the hurt and betrayal in her eyes, that she tried to cover up because there was no official reason to feel those things about his boss. She did ask who the mother was, because she needed to put out the fire, and Tony couldn't tell her that it will be her.

The second worst was Rhodey finding the Tony of the past under a _table_ , and then immediately decking the Tony of the future out, so at least both Tonys had matching black eyes.

At least it turned out that Steve could operate the time machine too, because when Tony came to it was in the blessed pres– _right_ timeline, and all he had for reminders were the purple ring around his eyes and a bunch of headlines from that alternate timeline.

"This time I'm going," Nat said. "Unlike other people, I _can_ blend in properly."

"And with that we'll erase this whole slip-up," Pepper nodded. "Not that you haven't been telling the truth..."

Tony groaned again, but she just gently kissed Tony's temple.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: I haven't seen Endgame, but I mostly know what happened - hence why I haven't seen it, because nope thanks - sand this is the only aspect of time travel I care about. *muffled shouting* I CAN DO WHAT I WANT AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME
> 
> Christine Everhart is a smart and underappreciated character and you can't convince me otherwise.
> 
> Come hang out on [tumblr](https://cpt-winniethepooh.tumblr.com/)!


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